Wish so wants to be the culmination of Disney’s 100th anniversary… it trades on the wish upon a star theme and references a number of classic and newer films. Its end credits has images from every Disney animated film, including ones from their bad years (you know the ones). It’s just a goddamn tragedy it’s such a mediocre film.

Wish has an obvious setup that’s obvious. A kingdom is ruled by a benevolent sorcerer who takes your wishes for safekeeping… but you forget what your wish was until such time as the sorcerer returns it to you.

I was a little perplexed by this system… partly because it seems so clearly problematic… and I could only justify it by saying the dreaded words, “it’s a kid’s movie.” That’s the death knell for any animated film that wants to reach across the demographic divide…

It’s a weirdly tortured analogy for something something government overreach or placing your dreams into the hands of external agents or something. I get the gist of it but I don’t know what they are really saying. Maybe I’m reading too much into it? But what else are you gonna do during this meh film? Pay attention to the mediocre songs?

Yeah, it’s a Disney musical with the kind of songs that made me sigh and say “Well, let’s get this over with.” There’s one song I found catchy on first listen… the rest might grow on me with time, but they are pretty generic. It’s telling when they end with an applause moment, all the characters lined up heroically, and I felt nothing.

The art and animation is 3D but is trying to suggest a more 2D classic animation style. It’s a weird mix that wound up feeling uninspired and flat. The character models are alright but their obvious trademarked super cute plushy-ready mascot character is noticeably generic. It’s a design-by-committee blob of cute that reminded me of Strange World’s generic blob of cute. Characters that would make good toys but have had all uniqueness drained from them.

Wish is a tragic film. It starts with a generic decency that slowly slides into a shrug. It’s middle act is outright boring and almost lost me completely. The final act has a certain rabble rousing inspiration plus a pretty good song of defiance that barely saves the film from itself. What a tragic mediocrity for a 100th anniversary.

Score: 71